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Put it out of your mind, she thought to herself. After all, he never paid attention to her outside of the occasional acknowledgement if they passed in the hallway. Her dreams had become thoughts of them together. It had become so much that she simultaneously avoid him and hoped for just a glimpse. She admired him for everything he was and he probably didn't give her a second thought. And so, she sat alone at lunch, amongst the noise of others, and tried to dismiss his existence.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" She looked up to see him, tray in hand. With food in her mouth, she gestured to the chair in front of her. He placed the tray on the table and sat down, smiling.

"How's your day going?' she asked without looking directly in his eyes.

"Good. Yours?"

"Busy." They sat there for an hour or so, mixing small talk and bites of food. He rose to leave.

"See you back at the office." He dumped his tray and was gone.

She spent the afternoon sifting through emails. They were printed out and placed in color coded folders that lay stacked on her desk. Hundreds of folders passed through her office each day. As an analyst for the private security firm, Marks and Sloan, she was solely responsible for checking each email for any minute detail that would indicate a danger to one of their clients. It was the same job she'd done for five years at the NSA and ten before that the CIA. She'd been recruited before even finishing college and completed her degree on an advanced track, studying nights after going to work for ten hours a day at CIA headquarters. Now, at 37, she had a six digit salary, a nice house in

Author's Note

work in progress. please be kind.